Free Voice of Our Shadow by Jonathan Carroll

tell?”
    I sat forward and looked more carefully at the picture on the screen. The people were holding on to the edge of a swimming pool, their hair slicked back and wet from the water. They looked young and exhausted. It really didn’t look like either Paul or India. India put the bowl of popcorn on my lap. It was almost empty. We’d been popping and eating it all night.
    “Are you bored, Joey? I hate looking at other people’s slides. They’re about as interesting as looking in someone’s mouth.”
    “No! I love pictures and home movies. It lets you catch up on the part of people’s lives you missed.”
    “Joe Lennox, career diplomat.”
    Paul pressed the button, and a shot of India came on. It must have been taken shortly after the last one, because she was still in the same swimsuit and her hair was wet-flat on her head. She was smiling to beat the band, and there was no mistaking her loveliness now. She must have been five years younger, but she was the same delightful woman.
    “This next one is my father. The only person he ever liked besides my mother was Paul.”
    “Aw shucks, India.”
    “Shut up. That’s no big compliment. He did not like me, his one and only daughter. He thought I was stuck up, which I am, but so what? Next slide, Professor.”
    “That’s when, India? Was I going to Morocco?”
    “I don’t remember. Great shot though. I forgot all about that picture, Paul. You look good. Very Foreign Correspondent -y.” She reached back and caressed his knee. I saw him touch her hand in the dark and hold it. How I envied them their love.
    The next slide came on, and I blinked in amazement. India and I were standing very close together, her arm through mine, and we were looking intently up at the Ferris wheel at the Prater.
    “Me and my spy camera!” Paul reached over and took a handful of popcorn. “I bet neither of you knew I’d taken that one!”
    “No, no, you only showed it to me twelve times after you got it back! Next slide.”
    “Could I have a print of it, Paul?”
    “Sure, Joey, no problem.”
    The painful thought crossed my mind that someday, somewhere far away, the Tates would be showing these same slides to someone else and that someone would ask in an uninterested voice who the guy standing with India was. I know the Buddhists say all transient things suffer, and there were times when that didn’t bother me at all. But when it came to Paul and India I wondered, truly, what I would do without them in my life. I knew it would all go on as usual, but I was reminded of people with bad hearts who are told to stop using salt in their diet. Inevitably after a while they come boasting to you that they’ve given it up completely and don’t miss it. So what? Anyone can survive; the purpose of life, however, is not only to survive but to get a little enjoyment out of it while you’re at it. I could “live” without salt too, but I wouldn’t be happy. Every time I looked at a steak I’d know how much better it would taste if I could only shake a little salt on. The same held with the Tates: life would toodle on okay, but they traveled so easily and joyously through the days, you couldn’t help being swept up along with them. It made everything much richer and fuller.
    After what had happened in my life, I was torn between being highly suspicious of love and longing for it at the same time. In the short time I had known them, the Tates had unknowingly stormed the walls of my heart and made me run the red flag of love up as high as it would go. When I asked myself if I loved them singly or only as Paul and India/India and Paul, I didn’t know. I didn’t care, because it wasn’t important. I loved them, and that was enough for me.

4
    One day out of the blue Paul called and said he was going on a business trip to Hungary and Poland for two weeks. He hated the whole idea but it was necessary, so that was that.
    “Joey, the point is that I try to avoid these damned trips because